Reports from International Animal Rescue's primate rescue and rehabilitation centres.

Blog Nation Badge

What's this blog about?

The Primate Diaries follows the ups and downs of our primate rescue units in Indonesia. Led by Veterinary Director Karmele, the team rehabilitate macaques, slow lorises and orangutans at our two rescue centres in Java and West Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).

Follow us on Facebook!

Followers

18 April 2013

International Animal Rescue's Primate Diaries: Dramatic rescues

Four more are safe...

...For now.

This mother tried to hide up the only remaining tree. The
team searched desperately for her baby but without success

International Animal Rescue and the local
foresty department (BKSDA) in Ketapang received reports of several
orangutans trapped in the fragmented areas of forest near a palm oil plantation
in Tanah Merah, which is about 3 hours by car from the new rescue and rehabilitation centre in Sungai Awan. With their forest home destroyed, the
animals scattered and began to wander the area in search of food and a new
place to live. The palm oil company
asked for help to move the orangutans, who had become a nuisance because they
were eating the young fruits from the palm oil trees. A
collection of forestry department workers, assisted by individuals from IAR,
had already begun conducting environmental surveys in the bordering forest to
find an appropriate place to relocate the orangutans. They found evidence that
the orangutans were eating bark and stems, as there was little fruit and few
leaves available.

Our team worked fast on a general health check while
the animals were sedated

In the third week of March, the rest of the
IAR/BKSDA team arrived to see the desolate and depressing landscape, which is
the product of the destruction of the forest within the borders of the
plantation. Workers from the palm oil
company helped the team to locate the individuals in need of rescue. The first was an adult female who had been
spotted with a baby. When the rescue
team arrived, the baby could not be found, and it is suspected that it was
taken to be kept as a pet, sold to the highest bidder, or worse. The mother, who was still lactating, scrambled
high into a single bare tree, so there was no good way to sedate her at that
time. The group waited for her to come
down and followed her across the apocalyptic terrain before she was safely
captured.

This orangutan and her baby were starving to death due to
deforestation.

A second female was caught
while traveling along the ground, and she was found to be pregnant. It was already dark when she recovered from
the sedative, but she had to be released that night as she was very stressed in
the transport cage.

The last two to be
moved came together as a mother-baby pair, which complicated the darting
process because the baby was clinging tightly to her mother’s back the entire
time. Both were very thin, but the mother handled the drugs well, and the baby
silently watched while still clinging on.

The baby clung tightly to his mother throughout the entire
process

Heavy rain fell on the team and the animals during the transfer, but
everyone made it safely to the forest at the border of the plantation. The future remains questionable for all in
the forest, and saving the land from further industrial use is of utmost
importance for the orangutans.